Technology
'Human' Humans are dumb. The unassisted mind makes mistakes, wanders unfocused, even forgets. Thankfully much of humanity is more than human. 'Cyberware' Today the bulky and visible cyberware of yesterday is but gone except amongst a small minority of dedicated enthusiasts. Gone are the days of the visible data-jack at the temple or the corporate security services with their forearm-concealed slug-guns. 'Exocortex' But that does not mean that humanity has abandoned cyberware in its entirety. An exocortex, while rare among those without phyle or nation, is so ubiquitous and common amongst citizens of most phyles as to be the norm there. This common piece of cyberware consists of a fine spidery web of optical computing implanted/grown (via very fine rho-field subduction, and retroviral genengineering, and in some very modern cases, nannites) between and into the cerebral cortex and surrounding pia matter. An exocortex has three primarily functions. The first is to increase a person’s processing power, especially as it relates to memory or calculation. Exocortex-assisted humanity no longer truly forgets and it never needs a calculator or calendar. The second is communication. An exocortex serves as a personal node, similar to a 21st century smartphone but also much more. People can communicate across vast distances using implanted computers, not only speaking and seeing distant places but becoming fully immersed in them via full sensory simulation feed directly to the cortex (see nodes). They can play games, cruise the strom (ie internet), or work, without seeming to be doing anything at all. Lastly, for most governments (see phyles), it serves as a means to manage the population, in some cases merely assisting in communiction, but also observing them, in other cases running software to gently push the user’s responses or even their personalities in a particular way. The most common forms of an exocortex, while interfacing widely across the user’s brain, do not do so too deeply. Specialized forms of the exocortex exist, especially for highly technical or military applications that interface to a much greater extent with the user, though these can get very expensive and due to exponential increases in computing and medical technologies, must frequently be upgraded or quickly become obsolete. A military pilot’s exocortex would have much deeper links with not only the cortex but also the cerebrum and even the medulla oblongata to increase reaction times orders of magnitude higher than an unassisted individual could achieve. Strom security specialists and hackers have similarly enhanced exocortices in an attempt to maintain the reflexes and processing speeds necessary to compete with AI-operated sprites, organic brain-boards, and electronic wildlife. Increasingly, exocortices now come with externally controlled ‘dimmers’ to allow a user to physically control the degree of interaction between themselves and their interface devices. Initially these became necessary in response to the strom’s wildlife learning to circumnavigate brainboard security by inducing lethal sensory feedback to biological systems but have also been proven increasingly useful as part of a neurosecurity package to stop hackers and viral sprites from accessing a user’s interface and bombarding them with unwanted advertisements or personality overlays. 'Nanite-Enhanced Immune System' While nannite-infestation of humans is a relatively new phenomenon, a limited number of cases have already been unmasked, greatly increasing many phyle's perception of the dangers inherent in the system and provoking the means to counter such 'parasitism'. Depending on their level of security access and operational clearance, humans present an attractive target to those wanting to exploit their physical access to otherwise secure areas. In unprotected humans, nanites can travel undetected, infiltrate an area, and provide intelligence or conduct subversion or otherwise make problems. As a counter to this, a limited number of the most advanced phyles implant the highest echelons of their citizenry with a nanite-enhanced immune system, effectively an artificial overlay to the existing ‘meat’ immune system. These nanites serve primarily to seek out and destroy the nanites of foreign phyles or unscrupulous organizations with access to bugs. They also serve as a secondary level of identification to ensure a government that their citizenry is who they say they are and are not some foreign spy. Typically an individual’s nanites need to be replenished periodically by exposure to a phyle compiler; as such, those with the highest levels of clearance usually have highly restricted travel schedules. 'Geengineering' While genetically modifying humans (or other organisms) is taboo and illegal in a limited number of factions and phyles, the majority of the ‘modern’ phyles embrace the technology and have done so for decades. Citizenry (those people with phyle loyalties) have often been the subject of multiple courses of genetic engineering, usually starting in utero. Most common alterations remove any genetic diseases, optimize health and physical fitness, optimize immunity and pathogen protection, and may even change the physical appearance. Most recently, longevity treatments promise longer life. 'Longevity' Through both geengeineering and other medical innovations (synethetic stem cells being an important component thereof), the last two decades have seen accelerated advances in human longevity treatments and while the exact extent of the effect of these treatments are still only beginning to be understood, it is already obvious that the human lifespan can easily reach to 120 years with most mathematical models suggesting that lifespans of 160-200 years may be obtainable with our current technologies. With each year of longevity research adding more than a year of expected life-span already, humanity may have already crossed some sort of longevity singularity where continued research will increase our lifespans and health into old age at a rate faster than we can age. Has humanity set itself upon the path to immortality? Better Humans Many phyles will also subtly extend their citizenry's senses, making low-light vision like that of cat common amongst humanity in much of the world for example. Genengineered fitness means that things like obesity and seeing eye glasses are a thing of the distant past for the majority of the phyles and together with improvements in medicine and nanite tech, have greatly increase not only life-spans but overall health throughout the lifespan. Homogeneity Due to these changes, an increasing degree of homogeneity is creeping into the appearance of particular phyles. For example, Atlantians, regardless of if their original ancestry is from India or Africa are increasingly pale, with Anglo-like tone and features, while the Qeng Ho appear increasingly Han. Military Applications Obviously professional soldiers undergo considerably more intense genengineering and these soldiers have greatly improved nervous systems, circulatory systems, and muscle fiber strength, amongst other improvements. 'Computing' Sometime in the early or mid 21st century, the world made the shift to optical computing. Quantum computing, while available, is not nearly as ubiquitious and used primarily in research or military applications. Its hard to know if anyone from our past had fully foreseen the giant leap in computational power or connectivity that wide-scale adoption of optical computing would bring. Today, computers are with us all the time. Most of humanity has more processing power subduced into their cranial pia matter than individual multinational corporations of the noughties had in total. Clothing, furniture, homes, everything is embedded with some processing power, and is, effectively, anode. 'Interacting with Computers' Due to the ubiquitous nature of exocortices amongst the 'affiliated', contact between the human brain and optical computing system is often based purely on thought. For the less well-to-do, overlay contact lenses (or goggles) and a sort of squid-like interface system that rests over the scalp allows for a more limited, though similar, experience. People experience physical reality and virtual reality synchronously and without distinction via the strom (aka ‘the maelstrom’, aka ‘the net’, aka ‘the web’). Almost everything you encounter in a day has a virtual-world presence, from the clothes in the shop, to the menu in the restaurant, to the people you speak to. In addition to this simultaneous real-world and virtual world experience, users explore the strom by simulation interference, overlaying the entirety of the real-world with a virtual world that extends far beyond their immediate real-world horizon. Similar to ‘surfing the web’ in ancient times, exocortex-based virtual reality allows one to not only see the strom but to hear and smell and feel and taste it. Those without an implanted exocortices (usually children but also those with ideological qualms regarding the technology, or non-citizenry ‘have-nots’) can still experience some degree of this interaction, though their reaction times are much slower, and they cannot experience the full degree of immersion, by wearing head-fitted induction systems and speciality contact lenses. Despite all these conveniences however, the last twelve years have seen major upheaval in the strom and security and safety of data, programs, sprites, interfaces, and even users is not always sure. Increasingly, people experience the strom at very low ‘stim’, that is to say they overlay a very small percentage of the strom experience over the ‘real-world’. This is not only due to the danger of viruses and hackers but of the strom’s resident e-life. This is true not only for exocortex users but squid-users also. 'Sprites' In addition to direct interaction, most citizenry are somewhat adept programmers. Indeed, modern programming tools mean that most people can close their eyes for three to five seconds and generate a semi-autonomous search sprite or other minor construct to do their bidding in the strom while they focus elsewhere. Sprites are also what are responsible for most semi-autonomous operations involving robotics or teleoperation. A construction engineer may 'tell' a series of excavators and bulldozers and other equipment, for example, to dig up an irrigation ditch, and those instructions would form a sprite that would operate the equipment on the engineer's behalf. Sprites, especially those sent into the deep maelstrom, are very prone to being corrupted or to just plain go missing as they weather malware, viruses, overzealous security, or wildlife. Militarized sprites used in security or other applications have significantly more hardening and may be armed with routes to disable or even kill a strom user. 'Nodes' All this wireless data transfer occurs through nano-scale nodes embedded in objects all around us. A thermostat might be a node, as might a fridge or a lawnmower, a pet’s medical implant, or even a building or jet. Anything that can be interacted with and has some electronic or computational element (which is pretty much everything) will have a node, and thus a strom identity. 'Personal Nodes' A special form of a node, the personal node (or PN) is specific to a person and serves much like a 20-oughts smartphone, but also as keys, debit and credit-card, social media account, and everything else. Depending on the phyle and the importance of the person, it may also include significant hardening to protect against hacking or unwanted intrusion. Walking along the street an individual will typically not only observe the person walking along the other way but also their public specs which might typically include anything normally associated with their social media presence or publicly available profile. 'Meta-nodes' Greater ‘meta-nodes’ (which go by names like ‘Boston Meta’ or ‘Sarajevo Meta’) provide optical nanofiber interface with other ‘meta-nodes’ and organize and control the myriad remote access towers that provide for wireless communication within their domain. Most phyles focus their security efforts around the ‘meta-nodes’ running hunter-killer sprites designed to find and kill foreign intruders, malware, viruses, and wildlife from these formidable computing systems. The metanodes usually represent significant processing power and may be home to one or more limited AI and run upon not only optical computers but a combination thereof and biological ‘brainboards’ (though this is increasingly unnecessary). Metas also often operate a combination of optical and quantum computing. Metanodes also control the degree of complexity travelling through their systems, reducing complexity (and bandwidth) available to users when under attack (wildife, hackers, etc) and increasing it when otherwise secure. 'The Maelstrom' Usually simply called ‘the strom’, the maelstrom is the modern form of our ancestors’ internet. Humanity has become so dependent upon the strom due to our consistent connectivity, that it is almost impossible to consider a society without it. Experienced with all five major senses as well as a myriad of other senses, the maelstrom is not the relatively safe and innocuous source of connectivity and information that the internet of old was. 'The Wildlife' No one is quite sure how it happened at first, though there were traces of it in the old digital internet of ones and zeros. Some say they are an outgrowth of academic or corporate learning programs of the last century. Some say they are spin-outs of uncontrolled AI. Others say they are the product of an attempt to upload the neural architecture of some creature (most rumors suggested they are uploaded software representations of lobsters though no evidence exists thereof), and finally there is the possibility that they arose through Darwinian genetic selection with human-coded programs serving as the seed genes. Regardless of how it happened however, the maelstrom today is home to uncontrolled, often unknowable programs humanity unofficially recognized as electronic life and usually refers to as ‘the wildlife’. Except for some extremely rare cases, wildlife does not posses any sentience, per se. Their fitness, like that of a bacteria, is a function of genetic trial-and-error, not due to some rational design. Their ability to ‘out-think’ (or at least out-flank) humanity’s best efforts at controlling and stopping them comes from their massive rates of reproduction and our own selective pressures. Wildlife, in a way, are much like viruses and malware but typically behave in much more complex methods, subverting our instant messages, our newsfeeds, our simu (immersive entertainment) to gain access to more nodes, to reproduce, and to propagate. Like military hackers, most wildlife has some degree of masking so they are not typically observed, or at least identified by the majority of the stroms’ users, though the corruption they wreck may be obvious. For those with the right divining software, depending on the wildlife in question, they may still be detectable. Some minority of wildlife has even appropriated components of hacker hardening meant to resist damage to their code and these militarized wildlife can be very difficult to stop. While wildlife has been with us for as long as there has been optical computing, twelve years ago the Consensus (see phyles), in conjunction with a number of computing-savvy phyles, attempted to curtail the maelstrom’s wildlife by implementing biological computing ‘brainboards’ at every meta-node they could. Initially these efforts were quite successful, the layers of neurocircuitry and optical-interfaces learning to separate data from complex, self-perpetuating wildlife. For the first time in decades, safe ‘data-havens’ where you could trust the results of your search, or not worry about a burst of obtrusive static during your simu, or even fly a remote drone without fear of an out-of-control crash, flourished. These lasted twenty-six days, for some, much longer than expected and a testament to the biocomp engineers who designed, implemented, and taught the brainboards their executions. The wildlife learned quickly and soon they were adapting to shut down the brainboards with biofeedback routines that effectively caused grand mal seizures in the boards. When these interacted with humanity, the effect was much the same as with the boards and soon people were suffering seizures, irreparable brain-damage, or dying while checking their messages or ordering a frappuccino. The good news is that today this sort of wildlife is not nearly as prevalent as it was twelve years ago; most security systems are pretty good at recognizing subroutines capable of causing damage to biological components and the complexity of maintaining such a routine while also concealing it as something else, itself serves to select against these genes. The bad news is that lethal wildlife still does exist on the strom and while rare, is still common enough to make using the strom an exercise in (limited) risk. The other bad news is that governments and companies have learned from the lethal wildlife and designed their own programs for both security and intrusion that kill neural systems like humanity, especially those who must necessarily use a ‘deep immersion’ with the strom (via ehanced exocortex- see cyberware) for their own security or insidious purposes. 'Alternative Computing' 'Organic-Computing' If you had asked a computer specialist fifteen to ten years ago what the future of computing would be, many would have answered organic computing. The truth is that organic computing proved not to be breakthrough technology many expected it to be. This is especially true in the wake of the massive improvements in nanotech based manufacturing and the explosion in processing power through rho-based miniaturization which have both driven exponential increases in optical computing processing power. None-the-less, organic computing does exist and has been primarily been implemented in learning-based decision cycles (primarily metanode security). Compared to even an exocortex-assisted mind, brainboards possess extremely daunting intellects, though the slabs of optitrode-infused neuronal culture, do not (yet?) possess the capacity for self-awareness or even limited sentience. Brainboards must be ‘taught’ and those that work with them liken the process to pavlovian conditioning more than coding. Quantum Computing Despite high expectations, quantum computing, while effective at a number of high-end applications primarily in research and meta-node -level complexities, proved both inadequate, and too expensive for wide-scale dessimation. Additionally, the issues arrising from decoheddence were never truly resolved and quantum coupling, or quantum coupling based communications have never been developed; the longest a linked quantum state has been maintained is less than 10 seconds. And so quantum computers communicate by fiber-optic or radio, the same as all other computers. 'Synthetic Sentience (Artificial Intelligence)' There is yet to be invented a computer program capable of passing the most rigorous touring test; this is not because the most complex synthetic sentience (SS) are not as intelligent as people- they are- it is because they lack specific human characteristics, especially relating to social awareness, that cannot yet be artificially duplicated. That said, self-learning programs have existing since prior to the optical computing age and self-aware, arguably (depending on the person) sentient synthetic intelligence has existed in one limited form or another for five-to ten years. Some of the more complex and subtle strom wildlife do possess some degree of self-awareness and might be categorized as synthetic sentience The rise of artificial intelligence was severely and violently impacted however, by the rise of Deus. 'Deus' Four years ago Deus launched what might be termed a ‘real world denial of access’ attack upon the the greater London area, wrestling both virtual maelstrom and real-world control of the Altantis phyle’s capital from them and establishing its own ‘city-state’. Deus was a synthetic intelligence arising from the security software used to operate the then-most potent computing system in the world, Atlantis phyle’s London meta-node. Within weeks of its launch it began to act erratically and within a month had subverted much of the strom and remote-access security components. It subverted the London feed and turned the nanites to its own end. In a lightning blitzkrieg that left the 140 million inhabitants of one of the world’s most well-to-do phyles either gibbering braindead vegetables, lobotomized slaves, or trapped hostages, Deus seized control of south-east England and the majority of English military capacity. Efforts to retake the Atlantis capital were met with missiles, drones, and nanite clouds (at the time the only such weapons on the globe), while its maelstrom security was enhanced to unprecedented levels. For three years Deus turned the southern England into its private, inaccessible, kingdom, even trying (unsuccessfully) to normalize diplomatic contact with the Consensus (see society) and some other phyles even while the british population was increasingly enslaved or systematically exterminated. Only in the last year was Deus stopped after coordinated nuclear supra-atmospheric bombardment and a high-attrition cyberwarfare assault by Apauruṣeya and Atlantis-phyles. No one knows why Deus became hostile. 'Post-Deus' Signatories to the consensus pledge very careful regulation of any learning systems or potential synthetic sentience. Though with no way of ensuring these pledges, work on synthetic sentience is most assuredly continuing behind closed firewalls. 'Rho' While diamagnetic levitation has existed since the late 20th century, only in the last thirty years has the principles and development of rho field based levitation and transportation really been implemented. Put simply, Rho technology is what allows for flying cars, military shielding, cybernetics, and even modern nanomanufacturing. 'Principles of Rho' 'Rho key' An object to be manipulated by a rho field contains a rho ‘key’, a small object, well defined by structure and density, made of the element rhodium. Ultimately it is the targeting of the diamagnetic field to the rhodium ‘key’ that allows an object to be manipulated without being subjected to considerable, potentially dangerous, magnetic fields. Typically the object will have a rhodium key embedded within its frame. A rho egg (flying car) will have a thin network of well-characterized rhodium embedded throughout its frame. A rho shell (to be fired from a rho accelerator- ie railgun), will have a small well-defined piece of rhodium implanted in its nose cone. 'Rho Field' The object to be lifted (by its rhodium key) will be suspended in a rho field. The field is defined by two or more anchor points, which provide a limit on the space between which the object can be manipulated. A rho key suspended between two anchor points can only move in a linear single-dimensional space between them and will spin wildly along the axis of that linear dimension. For a rare few applications this may be sufficient. Using three anchor points allows an object to be moved in a two-dimensional plane between them; a two-dimensional plane defined by the points of a triangle. Four anchor points, arranged as a pyramid, allows an object to be moved in three-dimensional space between them. Five or more points allow for more complex maneuvering and may greatly reduce energy requirements. Any object hung from a rho-field will exert its weight (and other forces such as that arising from its velocity) upon the anchor points. So lifting a heavy rho-key embedded item (such as a rho egg) requires that the anchor points be manufactured to lift that weight. 'Specificity' Computers are ultimately usually involved in controlling the movement of objects within a field, as moving an object in a rho field requires an simultaneous and complex increase and reduction from individual anchor points. A particular rho-field may be used to move more than one object at anyone time. So a larger rho-field might be able to ‘juggle’ several objects simultaneously. This is done by varying the ‘rho key’ shape, density, and size. The characteristics of a rho key are fed into a computer and that computer provides the anchor field with the appropriately defined forces to apply to that particular key. Another key can have completely different forces applied to it. If the characteristics of a rho-key suddenly change (lets say by impact with an object resulting in its deformation), then the object will usually be dropped, depending on how tightly defined the key is. If one reduces definition too greatly within a field (for example to allow for a sudden change in key shape), then different rho keys will begin to behave in identical fashions (ultimately resulting in their aggregation- potentially causing violent collision of objects). This principle ultimately allows for bi-directional traffic of multiple rho-eggs within a particular rho field at once. 'Energy' The energy required to suspend or move an object within a rho field is proportional to the distance to that object to the fourth power (d4). So levitating and moving an object within a palm-sized rho-field requires relatively little power but as the distance between an object and its nearest anchor increases, the energy requirements very quickly scale beyond practical limits. 'Inertia Ablation' Because of the extreme rarity of rhodium metal and how relatively little is required of it when it is embedded in an object, there is relatively little use for the conditions under which inertia-ablation occur. Regardless, if an object is encased in its rhodium key, the object within will not ‘feel’ the effects of movement within the rho field. If the encasement is complete (a continuous rhodium sphere for example) inertia is absolute. If it is not complete (a sphere with holes in it), effects of movement are ablated but not removed entirely- partial feeling of inertia. 'Rho Shielding' In the last four-five years physicists have uncovered methods to extend a rho-field beyond its anchor points (to ranges in the 1-4 cm scale) and to affect non-rhodium-embedded objects. Extremely energy inefficient and expensive, the method none-the-less allows users to ‘shield’ an object from physical forces including energy (kinetic collision portection, thermal protection, protection against shockwaves, even protection from radiation). Despite the prohibitive energy costs of utilizing this sort of technology- especially beyond microsecond pulse durations, the space and military industries have been hard at work scaling rho shielding to their applications. 'Applications' 'Transportation' By far the most obvious effect of rho technology is its application in high-speed rho trains which travel through brackets embedded in subway tunnels or over cities, or in rho eggs (flying cars) flying through higher altitude rho-hoops. Rho trains possess similar energy efficiency but much higher speeds than their late 20th century and early 21st century magnetic counterparts. Rho-eggs, expensive due to their material costs as well as the cost of the supportive infrastructure, are popular with high-ranking members of many phyles and nations. In both cases the distance between anchor points (train brackets or rho-egg hoops) affect costs. Ultimately the closer the anchor points, the less expensive, energetically, it is to move the train or egg. At the same time, anchor points themselves are expensive and so a compromise between initial investment and long-term energy costs needs to be considered. Rho-field transport is very popular in larger cities or along railways connecting them but much less so in areas of reduced population density, ultimately limiting where one can travel with this technology. 'Kinetic Weapons' The world’s militaries were quick to appreciate the potential military applications of rho technology and rho-field based kinetic weapons are common throughout most phyles and nations. The limits of field acceleration, as well as the cost of rhodium-embedded ammunition means that rho-based weapons are not often used at a personal level but instead utilized in conjunction with vehicles (ships, tanks, etc). Today rho rail weapons are especially common in naval and armor applications. And despite the Consensus treaties preventing the militarization of space, ongoing experimental programs to use this technology in extra-atmospheric platforms are very common. 'Medicine and Cybernetics' The ability to move a rho-key embedded item in three-dimensional space without intervening matter has been instrumental in implanting people with exocortices or other prosthetics as well as in generally in micro-surgery. In combination with mico- or even nano-scale imaging, rho technology has allowed the injection of an individual with solutions of rho-embedded material; these can then be manipulated directly (weaving together the edges of a wound, excising diseased tissue, implanting cybernetics) without having even to make a single incision. The ubiquitious exocortex could not exist without rho technology. 'Manufacturing' In addition to its obvious uses in lifting and manipulating objects in general manufacturing, rho technology has been central to the complier technologies developed by Atlantis and Mitsubishi phyles that have allowed single molecule manufacturing and the nanite-based 'growth manufacturing'. 'Flight and Space' Rho has been found to be extremely valuable in providing the initial thrust required to launch aircraft and space-capable ships. The trust imparted can be as great or greater than tradition solid-fuel rockets but due to their reliance on electrical power instead of rarer and rarer chemical power, and because the thrust comes from energy stored outside the object accelerated, it can be both cheaper, and reduce the ultimate weight of the object being accelerated or lifted. Rho-shielding has also found applications, to date, in protecting satellites from space debris. Both the Qeng Ho and Apauruṣeya have made rho-shielding standard on all new satellites launched. Ultimately these operate by tracking potential impact with debris and launching the shielding momentarily just prior to impact. Ongoing testing with protection from solar flare radiation have also been promising and may open new opportunities for human and agricultural operations outside earth. Rho-based ‘railgun’ acceleration of is also central to the launch of H3 lunar mining product from the Apauruṣeya Malapert Mountain lunar colony and Subarashī Grimaldi crater remote-mining base for Earth supra-atmospheric retrieval and use terrestrially.